College Freshmen Offer Advice to Class of 2019

By Jadyn Noonan

There's no doubt we seniors are all prepared to graduate, and May 26th can’t come soon enough, but have you ever wondered what it's going to be like going to a different school away from home?

I talked with some of the seniors that graduated last year to see how they were able to go from high school to college and what their biggest struggle was. I also asked what they would tell us to do to better prepare for the upcoming year.

Sophie Langkamp goes to the UW-Whitewater for criminal justice. Her classes are generally bigger compared to the ones she had in high school, some having 30 students. She also commented on how her classes are more interesting because she got to pick what classes she wanted that will help her for her future.

Sophie said that her biggest struggle going from high school to college was going from every teacher knowing you and making sure you understand everything and that you get your work done, to college professors where they teach with one style and they go on their pace and don’t care if you don’t get your work done or if you come to class or not. Sophie lives in a dorm on campus and only comes home every three to four weeks.

One thing that she wishes she would have done during high school to better prepare herself for college was to finish her homework and not procrastinate. While on the subject of homework, I asked Sophie how her grades were weighted and if she has more homework than tests or more tests and less homework. Her homework is around 10-15% of her grade, her quizzes are 20%, and her exams and papers are 70%. She said she normally has more quizzes and tests than she does homework, but each professor is different in how they like to teach.

I asked Sophie if she was scared to talk to her professors and if she has ever asked them for help; she responded that she was scared to talk to them and she hasn’t asked them for help yet, but that it’s all in her head because the professors tell her all the time to come to their office and she knows they would be more than happy to help her. The last thing I asked Sophie was what she would tell us seniors that are graduating this year that could help us next year, and she said “don’t be afraid to ask for help, everyone is struggling and stressing. Don’t procrastinate, learn how you study best, go out and have fun, and make a ton of friends”.

I was also able to talk with Rayne Wolf. Rayne attends the UW-Madison for industrial engineering. Rayne lives in a dorm on campus and comes home once every one to two months. Her classes are much bigger than the classes she attended in high school, and she says that her biggest struggle going from high school to college was changing from doing no homework after school hours, to doing seven hours of homework after class and studying for a week in advance for an exam that you still end up failing.

I asked Rayne if there was anything she wishes she would have done during high school to better prepare for college and her response was she wishes she went to a different high school in general, one that offers more transfer credits/ AP courses, and one that makes its courses more challenging for students. Rayne also made this comment when asked what she could have done to prepare herself:  “don't get me wrong I love Potosi, but I took so many courses through Southwest Tech and even those were a joke compared to the classes I’m in now”. Rayne doesn't think she could have done anything else to prepare because there was nothing else offered.

I talked with our school counselor, Mrs.Foote, about what has been done to improve the amount of AP courses available at Potosi. Her response was that every high school is trying to get more AP classes; here AP Literature, AP Calculus and AP Economics have been added. She also added that it is hard to duplicate the difficulty of college classes in a high school setting. Mrs. Foote’s advice for anyone that is going to a bigger college and going into a bigger major is to take every AP class and every challenging class you can to prepare. Another thing that she talked about was that some colleges have pre-college seminars that would give you a better idea what the courses you will be going through are like so you can prepare.

Rayne’s classes are more interesting to her now than they were in high school, and even though the professors are intimidating, she says their office hours help tremendously. Rayne’s grades are weighted differently for every class, but on average exams are 80%, quizzes are 10%, and 10% goes to group projects and homework.

Rayne’s advice to seniors graduating this year is to try not to go into college with an undecided major; everyone will tell you it’s okay to do, but really the college just wants you to pay more for classes you don’t need. She is not sure if this is true for every college, but at Madison you start taking classes specific to your major during your freshman year.

I grabbed some information about how Abby Kaiser transitioned from high school to college and the differences in athletics as she is playing basketball and going for accounting at UW-Oshkosh. Abby’s classes at Oshkosh are bigger than at Potosi, with some of her classes having over 200 people. Abby doesn’t seem to have a problem with the bigger classes, but says that her biggest struggle is trying to manage her time wisely with school and basketball.

I asked Abby what it was like playing a sport and doing college level homework, and she said that you definitely have to find time to balance the two throughout the day and make sure that you are always using your time wisely. Her classes are more interesting than they were in high school because she was able to take classes that relate to her major. Abby says that she is not scared to talk to her professors because she has biweekly check-ins with all of her professors for basketball. She says that this has allowed her to meet her professors so she isn’t afraid of talking to them and asking them for help.

Abby lives in a dorm on campus with a teammate and has only come home twice so far this year. I asked her what is one thing she wishes she would have done in high school to better prepare for college and she said she wishes she would have developed better study skills.